I didn’t miss things in that way when I lived in Hultsfred because it was a completely different place where my teenage years in Västerås felt very distans. Now I’m all of a sudden back at the crime scene, so to speak, and being here I remember all the good times so much more vividly. It’s one thing to think of what you did in high school when you’re sitting in a town 400 Kilometres away and another thing completely when you walk by your old school.

Perhaps I wouldn’t be as melancholic as I am about the past if I had never left Västerås. Now the end of everything that was my life back then came abruptly. I didn’t lose my friends one by one, I lost them all at the same time when I moved. Life as I knew it didn’t slowly change into something else, suddenly I just lived in a small town in Småland where I had never even set foot before.

Now I make it sound like my life is 2011 is shit and my teenage life was the shit. That’s not the case. My life in 2011 is good and I certainly don’t want to be a teenager again. Except for maybe that feeling of having my whole life ahead of me that I had back then, I do miss that. Still, what I do wish is that I could merge my old life with this life. Take the best from both. At least I have reconnected with a few people from before and that’s wonderful. A small piece of my old life in Västerås is part of my new life here too.

November 2001.
It doesn’t feel like ten years ago.

Still open for Christmas card exchange btw.

I’m really glad some of my readers have stayed with me and still read my blog even after all my time away from the blogosphere. Most of you who still stops by and comment I’ve known for years now as we’ve followed each others lives through blog entries and online communities. The fact that I have friends all over the world is really cool. I just wish the world wasn’t so big. Having you all nearby would be amazing.

Speaking of online friends, Christmas is almost here and I’d love to exchange Christmas cards with as many of you as possible. Anyone up for it?

I love getting Christmas cards. I love everything about Christmas! Buying gifts, wrapping them, decorating the tree, the Christmas music (Absolute Christmas FTW! (Swedish Christmas CD)), the decorations everywhere, the food, the drinks, the candles, the Christmas movies, everything!

I’ve bought a white Christmas tree and a few sets of ornaments. I’ll probably go with a little more pink than I originally had planned since I can’t find many black and white ornaments. The colour theme will be black, white, pink and silver. Won’t that look awesome? I think so. I bought five of the cupcake ornaments I blogged about a couple of days ago. I’ll probably buy more of them but five was all I could afford at the moment since they were quite pricy. Well at least I think 30 SEK (€3 $4) a piece is pricy.

Man I hope my cats won’t ruin the tree, tip it over, break the ornaments, eat it or whatever. I’ve never had a full sized tree standing on the floor so I’m not sure how they’ll react to it. They’ve been curious of the small trees I’ve had before but I’ve managed to put those in positions not easily reached by the cats, like on top of a book case. Fingers crossed there won’t be a cat vs Christmas tree accident.

Anyway, it’s really late, or early, depending on how you see it. I’m going to continue organizing some stuff while watching Freaky Friday. Yes, that’s the kind of things I do at 5 AM. For some reason I tend to get terribly inspired to do all kinds of things in the middle of the night. Cleaning, organizing, baking, painting and blogging, obviously.

First there’s the female fans who hate on the girlfriends/wives of their favourite rock stars. Like poor Lyn-Z who’s married to Gerard Way, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, who appears to be every emo teenage girls crush. When they got married there was so much hating on her going on online. Teenage girls who called her a nasty bad person, proclaiming she was all wrong for Gerard and that the relationship wouldn’t last. Jealous much? And who are they to say she’s a bad person? They don’t know her. Their reaction to their marriage shouldn’t be a stream of hate. If they truly look up to Gerard they should be happy for him! Not to mention trust his judgement. He obviously loves her so who are they to say she’s wrong for him? Do they honestly think they are better fit to decide that than he is?

The other fan behaviour I find ridiculous is when the fans of alternative underground bands become upset over the success of their favourite band. You’ve all seen the discussions. A band make it big and all the sudden some of their hardcore fans consider them sell-outs. This is another situation where the fans should be happy for the band rather than trash talk them. Do they really think the band doesn’t want to reach out to even more people with their music? Do they think the band doesn’t want to be able to live on their music? These people often also proclaim that the “new fans” doesn’t get the bands music like they do. Oh no, discovering a band when it’s already famous or through popular media automatically means you’re a lesser being who’s just jumping the bandwagon and doesn’t really get it.

It also appears to be wrong to like a bands most popular songs. Like I am much more fond of HIM’s earlier CDs which just happens to be the most popular ones. I once told someone that and got the reply “Oh, so you like their most famous stuff” in a condescending tone. Yeah, so? Is there something wrong with that? Maybe, just maybe, that material is more popular than the newer stuff because it just happens to be better? No matter the reason for popularity apparently it’s all wrong liking well-known songs.

I’ve got the same reaction by telling someone Temple of Love was my favourite song by The Sisters of Mercy. “The one everyone knows” was what the person called it, in a condescending tone. So? Just because that was my favourite song by them (it isn’t any more) it doesn’t mean that’s the only one of their songs I’ve heard. At the time I had actually been a Sisters fan for years and heard pretty much all of their songs. And once again, perhaps it’s the most popular song because it’s a really good song? But of course, liking a bands most well-known material is not alternative at all and made me a lesser Sisters fan.

Elitist bullshit.

Anyone wanna exchange Christmas cards with me by the way?

I listen to alternative rock, industrial, gothic rock, death rock, darkwave, punk, indie pop, folk and metal. Of these alternative rock, gothic rock and industrial is what I like the best so expect a lot of that kind of music on my CD. And a lot of Manic Street Preachers songs, of course. There won’t be much contemporary chart music though because I hate 90% of the crap on MTV. Meaning no Lady fucking GaGa and no hiphop.

Interested in widening your musical horizon? I listen to awesome music.

Check out the updates in the sidebar by the way because even if I haven’t blogged much lately I’ve still updated the site with lots of photos and art.

What do you think is the fugliest make-up faux-pas and what’s the worst make-up mistake you’ve done?

Oh and by the way I got a comment about the layout saying that the menu is off and the www link button is located under the start link button. For me the menu looks good in Opera, IE, Firefox, Safari and Chrome but maybe it doesn’t work correctly in a different version of one of those browsers. I dont know. Could be the hack I used to make the layout look exactly like I wanted it to in Opera, Safari and Chrome. Different browsers, different standards you know. If the menu is off in your browser please let me know.

Oh and this is the last chance to exchange Christmas cards with me! I’m buying the cards tomorrow so if you’re interested in this e-mail me at quende[at]spray.se today.

Want to hear something funny? Of course you do. So this is what happened. I was organizing books at work, standing in a pretty secluded area of the store, when all of a sudden the lights went off. I was like WTF? Then I realized OMG the Christmas lunch! Everyone’s leaving and no one noticed I was standing here! I ran to the door – which was locked – and knocked frantically. I was lucky because everyone were standing outside deciding who were going in which car so one of the bosses let me out. They were like “where were you?”. I think they assumed I had already gone home since they knew I wasn’t going to the lunch and they couldn’t see me anywhere. Jeez, wouldn’t being locked in at work for the rest of the day have been fun!

I’m still looking for people to exchange Christmas cards with. Are you interested in getting a card from Sweden? If so E-mail me your address to quende[at]spray.se

Anyway, moving on! Last year I did a Christmas card exchange with a couple of online friends. Since I thought it was a really fun thing to do I was wondering if anyone’s up for it this year. The concept is simple. I send you a Christmas card and you send me one. E-mail your adress to quende[at]spray.se if you’re interested!

Dots
Skittles
M&Ms
Junior Mints
Reese’s Peanut Buttercup
Ring Pop
Sweetarts
Twizzlers
Nerds

I was thrilled to receive another pack of Reese’s Peanut Buttercups! Angie also sent me those and it’s probably the most delicious chocolate I’ve ever tasted! I saved them for last and ate them sloooowly. Now they’re all gone and I want more! T_T The M&Ms where delicious, of course. It’s kinda funny because I actually sent Alyssa a version of those which is common in Sweden called Smarties. I thought Nerds was a pretty cool type of candy since I’ve never had candy that small before (I liked the pink ones the best) and since I love chocolate I obviously loved the Junior Mints. All the rest of the candy was yummy as well but these were my favourites.

Thank you Alyssa!

This is what I got from Angie:

Ring Pop x 2
100 Grand x 2
Laffy Taffy x 6
Boo Bracelet
Pop Tarts x 3, one opened in the photo.
Reese’s Peanut Buttercup
Hershey’s Milk Chocolate
Fun Dip
Blow Pop x 2
Pop Rocks

I loved getting to taste Pop Tarts! It’s one of those things I’ve seen in a lot of American movies and was really curious about. I know Pop Tarts is considered candy but I think it tasted more like cookies. Actually kind of like a type of cookies my mom always bakes for christmas. My favourite of all the stuff Angie sent me was the Peanut Buttercups. It might be the most delicious chocolate I’ve ever tasted! How will I go on knowing there’s such delicious chocolate out there which I won’t be able to get my hands on again?

And this is what I got from Tiff:

Peanut Kisses
Chichacorn Garlic
Pinasugbo
Patillas de Pili
Dried Mangorind
Crispy Pili
+ A cute postcard!

The candy Tiff sent me was really cool because it all feels very exotic to me. It doesn’t remind me of anything you can buy here in Sweden. It’s all very natural compared to the candy available here. I really liked the Pinasugbo which is some kind of delicious tasting sugarcoated fruit. The chichacorn was also really delicious. It’s kinda like pop corn which tastes like garlic. Sounds weird, tastes good.

This exchange was a really fun thing to do and I liked all the candy that was sent to me from both Angie and Tiff. Thank you girls!